Workshop-seminar 2 - Deliverable 2.2 (The Innochain Journal #3)

The deliverable will report on progress and outcomes of workshop-seminar 2. The workshop-seminar is a three part event with the scientific foci:
2.1)    Communication design:  Identifying methods for interdisciplinary collaboration. 
2.2)    Simulating design: Introducing virtual prototyping strategies and for new material practice.
2.3)    Materialising design: Introducing novel materials for robotically steered fabrication.

Innochain Network Journal #3

Welcome to Innochain Network Journal #3 assembled and
edited by KTH School of Architecture, Stockholm. Since Network
Journal#2 that covered the 1st year Colloquium, Innochain has
organized the Midterm Review events hosted by IAAC in Barcelona
at the research centre and Self Sufficient Labs in Valdaura coupled
with three parallel workshop-seminars, Workshop-seminar 2.1:
Design Communication in Shared Virtual Space led by Damjan
Minovski, Workshop-seminar 2.2: Simulation Fundamentals:
The Lattice led by Pablo Miranda and Workshop-seminar 2.3:
Materialising Design - Extending the Vocabulary of 3D Printing led
by Alexandre Dubor and Raimund Krenmüller.
As Innochain now moved into the second half of its programme,
we see how the ESRs are advancing their research, repositioning
themselves in relation to the current use of digital design in building
culture, investigating more integrative approaches to early stage
design and enhancing interdisciplinary collaboration.
The Midterm Review provided an important opportunity for the
Innochain network to focus the efforts of ESRs, Academic and
Industry Partners. The Workshop-seminars that were organized
right after the Midterm Review at IAAC, supported the ESRs in
formulating perspectives on their own research in dialogue with
workshop leaders and colleagues.
We can now see how each ESR research promises concrete
contributions to the field, and how they are right now furthering
their collaborations with industry partners. We can see this,
for example, in the development of demonstrators such as the
FlectoFold large scale demonstrator, an elastic-kinetic materialgradient
facade component system designed by Saman Saffarian
(ESR12); Tom Svilans (ESR02) and industry partner Blumer
Lehmann have developed techniques to integrate scanning and
feedback technologies into glulam production and with White
arkitekter in Stockholm has looked at how his research can inform
emerging timber-based projects. Many of the ESRs are engaging
in reassessing workflow between different expertise and different
users, and exchange during the design process. Dimitrie Stefanescu
(ESR05) in his research and development of the Speckle platform,
challenges existing design communication standards such as BIM,
and intends to improve the communication flows throughout
the whole value chain. By developing different software tools to
help expert users to get a better overview over large amounts of
data, Paul Poinet (ESR06) is also looking at ways of improving this
workflow. Zeynep Aksoz (ESR04) in her research is developing a
design methodology that considers the possibility of engaging
multiple criteria, assessing design performance of multiple
variations at early design phase. She has recently been working with
physical design artefacts, learning from physical feedback during a
stay at IAAC where she conducted experiments with students on so
called ‘Zeer Pots’.

Wood as a dynamically active material on an architectural scale is
being furthered in the research of Efilena Baseta (ESR07), where
she is currently developing a 1:1 scale robotically fabricated timber

At KTH, Vasily Sitnikov (ESR09) has been developing simulations
of ice erosion in conversation with Pablo Miranda Carranza. In his
research project, ice is used for the production of CNC-milled ice
formwork for a sustainable fabrication of non-standard concrete
elements.
Many of the ESRs have produced papers and presented their
research at conferences during this early fall, for example at the
Design Modelling Symposium in Paris, eCAADe in Rome, IBPSA in
San Fransisco, at IASS in Hamburg and at ACADIA in Cambridge. As
the research projects by the ESRs have reached a level of maturity,
we have seen more demonstrators produced and disseminated
through conferences and exhibitions.
The Innochain network and programme has a focus on three main
fields; Communicating design, Simulation for design, Materialising
design. We are now seeing synergies between these fields where
both computation and material feedback are central to the
unfolding of the research. We are very proud to present the current
state of the research by each of the ESRs in Innochain Network
Journal #3.